It is commonly thought that everything that is can be put into words.
AGNES MARTINIt is commonly thought that everything that is can be put into words.
AGNES MARTINMy paintings are certainly nonobjective. They’re just horizontal lines.
AGNES MARTINNature is like parting a curtain, you go into it …. as you would cross an empty beach to look at the ocean.
AGNES MARTINThe enormous pitfall is devotion to oneself instead of to life. All works that are self-devoted are absolutely ineffective.
AGNES MARTINI want to emphasize the fact that we all have the same experience and the same concern, but the artist must know exactly what the experience is. He must pursue the truth relentlessly.
AGNES MARTINI think it’s a response in our minds to perfection. It’s too bad, people not realizing that their minds expand beyond this world.
AGNES MARTINArt is the concrete representation of our most subtle feelings.
AGNES MARTINI’m very careful not to have ideas, because they’re inaccurate.
AGNES MARTINMy paintings are not about what is seen. They are about what is known forever in the mind.
AGNES MARTINDoing what you were born to do … That’s the way to be happy.
AGNES MARTINThere’s nobody living who couldn’t stand all afternoon in front of a waterfall …. Anyone who can sit on a stone in a field awhile can see my painting.
AGNES MARTINWhen you look in your mind you find it covered with a lot of rubbishy thoughts.
AGNES MARTINIt’s not about facts, it’s about feelings. It’s about remembering feelings and happiness.
AGNES MARTINThe manipulation of materials in an artwork is a result of this state of mind.
AGNES MARTINWhen I first made a grid I happened to be thinking of the innocence of trees and then this grid came into my mind and I thought it represented innocence, and I still do, and so I painted it and then I was satisfied. I thought, this is my vision.
AGNES MARTINI think our minds respond to things beyond this world. Take beauty: it’s a very mysterious thing, isn’t it?
AGNES MARTIN